


Father's Day

by mysterycultist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: & Ahsoka meets leia, Gen, Teenage riot in a public station Gonna fight and tear it up in a hypernation for you, baby ahsoka - Freeform, nonlinear collection of scenes, self-indulgent father-daughter angst &c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24059470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterycultist/pseuds/mysterycultist
Summary: A dozen wide eyes lock onto him from two feet above the ground. Pairs of big, round eyes in child’s faces—the kind that see everything, absolutely everything.Master Yoda looks up at him from the same level, his smile creasing the thousand wrinkles in his green face. Anakin has only ever seen him smile, he thinks, when he’s among the younglings, and he’s not sure why. Is it their simplicity, their innocence that soothes something in him?Why did he never smile at Anakin like that?“A great honor this is, young ones. The first class Master Skywalker has taught, you will be. All of his errors, will you spot?”
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Yoda, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Leia Organa & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 14
Kudos: 122





	Father's Day




“Ahsoka!” 

Ahsoka grins and hurries to meet Master Plo outside the archway. She bows, and he kneels to face her at a level--which only embarrasses her a little. It can be hard to read Master Plo, all of his face concealed and everything, and some younglings are intimidated by him. Not Ahsoka. She can tell by the sound of his voice he's pleased to see her. 

“It’s been some time, young one. Tell me, how is your training?” 

Ahsoka feels her smile wane a little bit and fights to keep it in place. 

It is, as usual, a beautiful day on Coruscant—the sunshine on the pavilion tempered just enough by a troop of fluffy clouds, far enough between precipitation cycles that the wind is just a cool touch on Ahsoka’s skin. All the same, she brings her hands together and hugs her arms to her body as if she's cold, scuffs her heel against the flagstones. She hasn’t seen him since before she went to Shili, just after her twelfth birthday. 

“It’s going well, Master. I’m really enjoying our introduction to the Sense abilities, and Master Yoda says my grasp of Ataru is best in my clan—um, not in those words—And Master Jocasta and I are really fine-tuning my written work. It’s all about _objectivity.”_

_Objectivity, tone_ , and _brevity_. Master Jocasta was really firm on that. 

Master Plo sets his hand on her shoulder. “Something is troubling you. What’s wrong?” 

All of a sudden, her heart hurts. It hurts like stabbing her finger into a deep, purple bruise. 

She shakes her head, but Master Plo gives her that look—which is _really_ hard to describe, and she says, “Nothing’s wrong, really. I know that I’m a good student. My teachers are all super nice to me, I really like them all, and—and I’m not _unpopular.”_

Master Plo nods deeply, creasing his forehead ridge. “Oh, I had no doubt.” 

“It’s just... there’s areas where I’m lagging behind. And... there’s things about me that are different.” 

The truth is that she's probably better friends with her teachers than anyone in her Clan, at this point. She doesn’t want to be anyone’s friend now—she doesn’t want to give anyone more opportunities to see how hard she's struggling, and... and how strange she is. 

Before she went to Shili for her coming-of-age, she thought that it was just because she was Togruta that she was different from other younglings. But she hardly felt like a Togruta on Shili—They were so quiet, and soft-spoken, and extremely _diplomatic. Diplomatics_ is one area of study that Ahsoka has particular trouble with. As is keeping her voice down, keeping her thoughts to herself, and fitting in. 

Master Shaak-Ti, who took her back to the homeworld for the ritual, said that she’d never seen someone take down an akul that _fast._ It’s just that Ahsoka couldn’t get off that planet fast enough. 

She wondered how she didn’t remember Shili _being_ like that from when she was younger, but—Well, she was _really_ young when she left. Or maybe it's just easier not to remember. 

She doesn’t want Master Plo to see it, too. But if anyone can help her... maybe it's him? 

Her face is turned down, but she feels his warm hand give her shoulder a gentle squeeze. 

“Your peers know that our external differences dissolve into nothing in the Force. Trust me,” he says. 

She bites her lip. She can’t bring herself to say that being orange is the _least_ of her worries, these days. 

For a little while, she was the best. That made everything easier. She had a really rough time with year seven, and then she broke through and couldn’t do anything wrong—That was _great._ But it didn’t last, and now— 

“Our Apprentice Tournament is coming up,” she blurts out, before she can realize how _desperate_ and _impertinent_ it sounds for her to remind Master Plo of that. 

He gives her a pat and stands up. “A nerve-wracking time if I ever had one. But trust in your teachers and in the Force, Ahsoka, and you’ll pass through these trials gracefully. I sense great depths in you, and great potential. Do you know what Master Yoda says about you?” 

She feels her eyes go round. She shakes her head. 

“He says that your _persistence_ shows just how dedicated you are to the Jedi way. I believe the word he used was ‘remarkable.’” 

“Remarkable,” Ahsoka echoes. She's trying to nail that in. 

Okay. _Remarkable._

Some initiates return for the tournament year after year until they're finally shunted off to the Service Corps, and some have to go twice or three times before they catch a Master’s attention. This is going to be Ahsoka’s first and _last_ Apprentice Tournament. She will not let Yoda and Master Plo down. 

She walks into the courtyard with her head held high. Maybe she looks young for her age—she doesn’t really know any Togruta her year, so that may or may not be true—but her montrals had grown taller, and she isn’t going to let any kid in that yard think she doesn’t belong there. 

And there are a _lot_ of kids there—maybe three Clans. 

That’s okay. She's tough; she's ready for anything. 

Master Yoda tells them that he’s invited Master Kenobi’s padawan, Anakin Skywalker, to demonstrate his Form V technique for them. Whispers race through the yard—It is known, from the older younglings, that Skywalker was a terrible student but more talented than anyone else, and that’s because he is the _Chosen One._ As far as Ahsoka can tell, no one knows quite what that means—But he was inducted into the Academy when he was _ten_ or _twelve,_ which has like, never happened. 

Then it’s the word that someone has heard that he’ll be knighted himself this year—Which makes sense, since he’s apparently been in the field with Master Kenobi, one of the most active knights in the order, since he started training and has been commended a kajillion times, and he’s the Chosen One. 

And Ahsoka feels this evil gleam growing in her eye, because she knows—She's gonna learn the secret from this Anakin Skywalker today. 

She braces herself when the voices hush and stands at best posture when the padawan enters the courtyard— 

He’s tall, cool-eyed. He stops to bow to Yoda, then to all of you, and he continues on his path, walking past each youngling and looking them in the eye. She tries to imagine the life that brought him to this point, the way he must’ve acted in class—Always polite, attentive, quiet when he was supposed to be. He must’ve only been a bad student because he was too good—there are kids like that in Ahsoka’s clan, the kids who jump too far ahead on a point, the ones who speak _too_ well. That graduated him to an understanding of humility and a quiet confidence in his own abilities, so that now he can bow to Master Yoda without a twitch of anxiety in his face. Ahsoka doesn’t blink; she makes her eyes see as wide as they can, and she narrows them to points and darts between each aspect of his person. She’s looking for the thing. The Chosen One Thing. The thing she doesn’t have—yet. 

Ahsoka is in the third row. She muscled her way up that far, but she didn’t want to be scolded today for selfishness. Her heart is racing at the idea he won’t look at her at all—she's too far back. 

Anakin Skywalker’s feet make a soft crunch in the grass. He steps past the girl in front of her, and his eyes lock on hers. Ahsoka’s heart stops. 

He looks on to the next student. She watches his back as he continues walking. 

And as illogical as it is, as rash and emotional and stupid, she knows he didn’t see anything. He didn’t see a damn thing in her. He didn’t see her at all. 

During the lesson he calls out that You, in the third row—you're too aggressive. Get some control. 




  
“Hand to hand training. Come on, hit me.” 

Ahsoka says _ugh_ and lowers her lightsabers. She’s really, really tired now—they started training late, after she’d written the evening off because the whole day they were on the frontlines. “Is this to first blood, or do I have to take you out?” 

She expects him to say what he has before, _You_ _can’t take me out_ , but he just gestures her forward and says again, “Come on.” 

He’s got that look in his eye that tells her this isn’t forms or anything, and he isn’t going to hold back. 

So Ahsoka clips her sabers, gets in stance, and tries to punch Anakin in the face. 

Surprise, it doesn’t work. 

On her back, Ahsoka fights to keep her eyes from spinning and get air back in her lungs. 

“Get up, try again.” 

She doesn’t have the breath to say, _What_ _do you think I’m trying to do?_ But she grinds her hands into the dirt until she can push herself back up, gets in stance with her fists curled, and thinks: I don’t have the reach to knock him out in a straight brawl, but I have a lower center of gravity and he is built like a stack of blocks— 

As if he’s reading her mind, Anakin grounds himself, bent at the knees, and she knows she won’t take him out because he’s older and bigger and better, but she barrels forward and launches herself at his head, anyway. 

He swats her out of the air like a fly. 

She lands hard in the dust and she’s thinking, _Why is he making me do this?_ She will never, never beat him in a fair fight because he knows everything that she doesn’t. She will not get an opening with him worth spit; she will not anticipate enough of his moves to hold out. Is he teaching her humility? All she feels is angry and ashamed. 

Rolled away on her side, she hears Anakin take a step away. He says, “All right, that’s enough.” 

So quietly that she doesn’t breathe, she gets herself sitting up. His back is to her, he’s walking to a crate toward the barracks where he’s set his flask of water. 

She thinks, I’ll show you. 

She gets up and flies at him. 

Anakin barely has time to react; he raises his arm to deflect her but the full directed momentum of her body is already bearing down and he crumbles with a hit. 

She rolls to her feet, looks back, and immediately she’s on her knees helping Anakin off the ground. There’s a red mark and a bloody scrape on his left cheek—his _good_ cheek, jeez. 

“Master, are you okay?” 

His eyes are shining—Maybe, probably not from pain. “Good work, Snips,” he says with a voice so strained and quiet she almost doesn’t hear. 

  





“You didn’t have a father.” 

Padmé is sitting with him on the steps of her apartment’s landing pad. Their apartment. Her feet rest with her toes hanging mid-air, the thousand thousand miles above the surface of Coruscant, but Anakin has a good grip on her. They’re watching the air traffic—both of them like to spot ship models, compare popularity and performance. It’s such a boring pastime, Anakin thinks. They’re boring like old people. He loves it very much. 

She says that, about his father, and turns her face up to look at him. He smiles down at her. He knew this conversation was coming, and he isn’t anxious. His heart beats faster with anticipation, that’s all. 

“I’m about to sound like a heretic. When my mother told Master Qui-Gon that I didn’t have a father, he took it very literally. It, uh, fits a Jedi prophecy.” 

She nods; apparently, she knows all about the prophecy. He thought maybe it was vaguer to her—or, he hoped. Continuing: 

“I took her literally, too, when I was very, very young. But, uh, the other kids were able to explain it to me. For a slave on Tatooine, to say that ‘there is no father’ isn’t all that fantastical. Do you understand?” 

“I think so.” 

“I’m glad I never had to meet him. And he should be glad, too.” 




Anakin stands in the hallway with his eyes shut, practicing his breathing techniques. One, two, three, four, five. Exhale. 

He rolls his shoulders. He opens his eyes. He walks in. 

A dozen wide eyes lock onto him from two feet above the ground. Pairs of big, round eyes in child’s faces—the kind that see everything, absolutely everything. 

Master Yoda looks up at him from the same level, his smile creasing the thousand wrinkles in his green face. Anakin has only ever seen him smile, he thinks, when he’s among the younglings, and he’s not sure why. Is it their simplicity, their innocence that soothes something in him? 

Why did he never smile at Anakin like that? 

“A great honor this is, young ones. The first class Master Skywalker has taught, you will be. All of his errors, will you spot?” 

A chorus of giggles bubbles up from them, and Yoda clasps his hands. They quiet quickly and greet him: “Hello, Master Skywalker.” 

“Hello,” Anakin says. His eyes dart to the left—Yoda gives him a long, long look. 

“Sudden, this request was, Young Skywalker. What made you appreciate the value of this practice of ours, I wonder?” 

Anakin has an answer ready: “The younglings are our future. I’ve been too rash in my youth, too focused on the present, but I feel that I’m ready to look forward.” 

The old thoughts bounce back and forth in the back of his head like tabletop paddle-smacking balls: I have been giving back to the Order for years, I have paid for our future in blood, I have given everything—etc., etc. They’re noiseless. It isn’t the point. 

And the answer is too rote for Yoda to trust it remotely, Anakin can see that, but Yoda will never trust him, and he’s always pleased enough by a correct response. 

The small Grandmaster sidles up closer to Anakin. In a loud whisper, he asks— “Scared, are you?” 

The children laugh again. This good-natured humor is the most diplomacy Yoda has ever shown him, and Anakin tries to take heart from that—take a lesson from it, maybe?--instead of feeling bitter. 

He wants to return the favor, he wants to smile at the kids and say, _Not at all,_ with that same cocky air that always made Ahsoka roll her eyes—To see Anakin playing his part so baldly always sets people at ease, it flaws him enough to make him comfortable—laughable, but comfortable. 

But there’s something paralyzing his tongue. Maybe it’s the true answer, ringing in his head— _Yes._




There’s Anakin who held neighbor babies in his arms and fed them bottles and mush while their mothers worked, there’s the Anakin that killed everything with a pulse one night in the desert and only saw who and what those things were after the fact, in his memory—and there’s Anakin now. He wishes again and again he could be who he was before the Force ever touched him—in the fantasy world where it was Qui-Gon Jinn who handed him over the burden, not destiny, not his blood—Because _that_ Anakin was far from perfect, but he knew how to be a person. Which is to say—he knew how to shift through the world of people without causing too much pain. Doesn’t that sound simple? Natural? It’s only recently—very recently—that he’s sat down to remember and reassess the boy he was, and he looks like a stranger now. Anakin’s in awe of him. He’d almost be proud, if he didn’t know what he himself had done with that boy. 




“Look at you, Ahsoka!” 

Anakin’s lit up like the Coruscant skyline but she keeps her arms crossed and her eyes rolled strictly away from the vidscreen. 

They’re on the ship, elbows on the comm and eyes glazed over while they scroll mindlessly through hours of data from the sliver of the Jedi Archives they checked out pre-flight. They’re like, going to a summit on some mid-rim world that’s having a referendum on Jedi initiates being taken to the Temple--like; Ahsoka hadn’t been briefed ahead of time except to meet him at the Archives, and Anakin got there so late in the morning that he just rushed in with bags under his eyes and his robes breezing behind him and had the librarian-on-duty put everything on initiates that could fit on a datacard on a datacard. 

Now, two hours in, he breaks her out of her stupor to make her look at her intake photo. Somehow, her initiate file made it in here—they couldn’t have downloaded _all_ of the initiate files, that’d be like, a billion zettabytes. 

“You’re like a little doll. A little doll with pudding on its face. Do you even have teeth yet?” 

“ _Yes.”_

_“_ Oh man, I see it. That’s hilarious.” 

There’s a minute of silence. Ahsoka holds her position, arms crossed tight and feet up to the wall—pouting—as long as she can stand before she whips around the swivel, leans over and cranes her neck to try to see around his fat head to the screen. “ _What_ are you looking at now?” 

“Your year thirteen holo.” 

“Stop it!” 

“It’s right here in the file, Ahsoka, it’s not like it’s buried in the vault.” 

Ahsoka’s face is burning and she knows she’s only embarrassing herself more by being angry, but she shuffles over on her knees to look for herself and see how bad it is— 

Oh, man. She looks way goofier than she remembered. Like, really dumb, really little—not small little, little kid-little. 

“Ha-ha. So funny.” 

He taps the screen. “I didn’t know you had a tooth wire.” 

Anakin sits back in his chair, arms crossed, weird little satisfied smile. She just wishes he’d let it be over already. She almost says, _Let’s look at_ your _year thirteen_ _holo_ _,_ but somehow she knows Anakin didn’t look like a snippy little brat back then. She’s sure he was already Anakin Skywalker. 

“You know something funny—” 

“ _What?_ ” 

“It’s nothing.” 

“It's not nothing! What were you going to say about me?” 

“Look at the way you’re standing there. You see the way you have your hand on your cheek? I used to have this holo of my mother when she was a little older than that, she was standing the exact same way. I swear she was.” He shakes his head, sniffs a laugh. 

Something goes very still inside Ahsoka then. She forgets being upset. She wants to tread carefully: this is one of those chances her master isn’t going to give her again. So she says lightly—carelessly—carefully: “What was she like?” 

As he starts to speak, there’s a hard smile pasted on his face. His eyes crinkle, he opens his mouth and shakes his head—like he’s decided to say something, and he’s determined to follow through, but he just can’t bring himself to do it anyway. But then he says, “She was kind. And she was practical. It’s a harder balance to achieve than I realized when I was a kid.” 

Ahsoka keeps her face perfectly neutral, and although he isn’t looking, she nods. 

“She seemed simple. Stupid,” he says, with some force. “But she wasn’t. I’m still figuring her out. I only knew her for... Conversationally, six years. But I’m still figuring her out.” 

Anakin’s staring somewhere to the side. He’s trying to hold an easy smile, exhales into it with every word, but the lines get grimmer every second. 

Ahsoka is practically holding her breath. He isn’t finished yet, there’s something else. 

After a heavy pause, he says—faster, less hard and distant than before: “Growing up, it was always us against the world. I always felt like we were a great team, and nothing could ever get to us, not really. She shielded me from a lot. It occurs to me now, though,” Anakin says, and stops abruptly. 

The only sounds are the air filters, circuit processors, shuffling at the shelves far away, and Ahsoka prays for each one to quiet down. 

Anakin finally says, “She must’ve been alone before she had me. I can’t even imagine.” 

That’s the end. Ahsoka breathes again. 

There’s a little piece of her that screams out to grab his hand tight and say I’m glad we’re a team now, I’m glad you’re never gonna be alone again, Master, but she knows it wouldn’t be right. 

But she does something weird now. She feels prompted to do it: she folds her hands together and leans in and really _looks_ at Anakin, and she tries to see his mother who she’s never met. 

She really doesn’t remember her own mother. You aren’t encouraged to, in the Temple—Like, she was only little when she left, but she remembers leaving, and she knows she’d remember her mother, but at some point, she decided not to. 

But she tries to envision Anakin’s mother now, in the little details of his face and posture. She’s seeing a woman like, maybe thirty years old—that's around the age Obi-Wan is, maybe that’s why—with the same set to her mouth as Anakin now and the same shadows at the eyes, a little more hunched at the shoulders but at the same time, a straighter back—hair grey at the temples, longer—something more desperate in the eyes— 

But that makes her see something desperate in Anakin’s eyes, and she stops imagining. 

“Mothers are supposed to cook,” she says instead. “Did yours ever cook anything?” 

Anakin rolls his eyes. “Yeah.” 

“ _You_ don’t' cook anything.” 

He smirks at her and bends down between his legs to tap the cabinet open, dig through and toss a fruit ration at her. Ahsoka smiles, rips the pack open with her teeth and takes a slurp. The sweetness is, as always, a little artificial. But it’s okay. 

“Anyway,” Anakin says. “You’re way louder than Mom was. But don’t worry, Ahsoka. I won’t forward the holo to anyone. _Except_ Master Plo.” 

“Ugh!” she says, and throws the half-empty ration foil at his face. Anakin flinches a second late and it clips the back of his head, leaving a splotch of syrup that will harden and stay there for the next three days, and Ahsoka will notice and remember a dozen times between now and the morning he washes it out. 




Ahsoka has the glass to her lips, settled in the chair facing Bail Organa’s desk and wrapped in her cloak—All the dimmers on the windows, fish tank gurgling. This is not a safe place at all: it’s one of the more dangerous parts of Ahsoka’s life. But it’s a place she always finds herself happy to be. 

It reminds her a little of the old days. 

She has the glass to her lips, broth just touches them when the door behind her slides open. Immediately Bail is on his feet. 

“Leia, leave _now._ ” 

Glass in hand, Ahsoka turns in her chair. Haloed by the light of the hall is Bail’s sixteen-year-old daughter: a dark, slender shape with elaborate curls woven at the head—for a second, until the door closes. Ahsoka’s eyes adjust as the girl strides forward, hand outstretched. 

“Hello,” she says. She has a determined, satisfied smile that makes Ahsoka like her right away. 

Ahsoka twists more to offer her own hand back, but before they can shake on it, the girl’s startled back into a defensive position by her father: 

“ _Leia!_ ” 

She’s wearing a dress much simpler than a royal might: clean lines, belt, sturdy fabric. Probably not asceticism so much as it is a stylistic choice. It’s clear to Ahsoka immediately that this is a kid with a good head on her shoulders, a lot of spunk, and plenty of reasons to make her father terrified of her meeting Fulcrum. Ahsoka also knows right away that Bail’s right to be scared, because there’s plenty this girl could do for the rebellion. Maybe it’s bad of her to think that—repeating the sins of her fathers, as they might say, because this is a child they’re looking at. But still. As is her way, Ahsoka’s already connecting her to useful people, useful roles in her mind—tentatively, of course. She’d never work against Bail. 

Leia crosses her arms, staring her father down, chin up. “Why?” 

Bail’s rounded the desk, grasps Leia by either shoulder, and Ahsoka realizes he’s putting himself between his daughter and her. 

Why? 

“Leia,” more quietly now. “There’s nothing I’d ask of you without reason. You know that. Go now.” 

Ahsoka can see that she’s turned her face away, head down, and her voice is twisted in sadness—a whisper: “I just don’t understand—” 

“Leia, please.” 

Quietly, Ahsoka draws her knees into her chair and peeks up over the back to get a better view. 

This is when she realizes that she’s never taken a good look at Bail Organa’s daughter. She remembers being vaguely aware that he had one. He’s mentioned her—here and there—over the years, and Ahsoka’s sure she’s at least seen her in vids of the royal family of Alderaan— 

And why would she care? 

Except now her heart is racing, a spike of panic to the brain, as if she’s left something dire on the backburner way, way too long— 

Take a look at Leia Organa: look at her chin and the shape of her face, the manner of her expression now, the set of her mouth and her brow. Remember holos you’ve seen of people you knew that were taken when they were way younger than when you knew them. Look at her fist clenched at her side, but most of all, look with your feelings—Reach out like you were taught to, but haven’t, in way too many years. 

Suddenly the girl’s eyes are locked on Ahsoka’s. She looks so sad. “I’m sorry,” she’s saying, and Ahsoka’s heart wrenches, on high alert and totally confused. “I shouldn’t have intruded. I’m sorry—” 

Just as quickly as she came in, Leia strides out the door and she’s gone. 

Bail stays turned away from Ahsoka. Then, he turns around. 

“You should have told me,” Ahsoka says. Her voice sounds harder than she expected--hard as nails. 




“Princess!” 

Leia whirls around. She likes to move that way—she finds herself anticipating things just a little, by a couple seconds, and she likes to put that time into motion when she reacts: a little extra force, a little _pow_ _._

It makes the anticipation less worrisome. 

There’s a Togruta woman at the other end of the hall, cape falling to rest behind her—the hooded woman from her father’s office, Leia realizes after a beat. 

The woman slows her pace, closes the distance and extends her hand. “I’m Ahsoka,” she says. “A friend of your father’s.” 

Leia nods, hopefully not too eagerly, and shakes her hand. “I know,” she says. 

Ahsoka smiles. 

“Walk with me,” she says, even though Leia really should be the one saying things like that. 




The apartments Anakin shares with Padmé are more beautiful than anywhere he’s ever lived himself. He has his head in her lap, lying on the couch while she reads, and above him is the galactic map glittering in pastels on the dome of the ceiling. The floor, under his dangling fingers, is soft as silk. 

This place always, always fills him with dread he wishes like hell he could stop feeling, every time. He wants just to feel happy, so badly, without tainting it with his fear. 

“Anakin,” she says. Her voice sounds above him so suddenly that he startles awake, as if he’d fallen asleep outside just to wake at the sound of the birds. 

He hums, and she says, “Say something to the baby.” 

He sits up, regards his wife in her gown with the reading tablet discarded in one hand, limp and thrown over the armrest, and her other hand wrapped over her rounded stomach. And she regards him just as much. 

How did this happen? 

“What do you think it will be,” he says. “A boy or a girl?” 

Padmé laughs, never taking her eyes off him. “Shouldn’t you be telling me?” 

He grins, shakes his head. “I can’t tell.” 

He can’t. 

“I think she’s a girl,” Padmé says, with an imperious tilt of her chin that tells him she’s just decided. 

And Anakin smiles, rests himself closer to her. “Well, I suppose I have some experience bringing up girls,” he says, then a cloud comes over his mind. 

He sees it darken Padmé’s face. She says, “Anakin, have you heard anything from Ahsoka?” 

“No. I know she’s on Coruscant again.” 

“Do you think, maybe...” 

“What?” 

“Maybe she’d stay with us, when we leave to have the baby.” 

Anakin sits up. He feels the loss of her warmth on his skin instantly, a big cold front in the room. “She doesn’t want to see me, Padmé.” 

“Maybe she does.” 

“No.” 

“I _know_ she’d want to help, if she knew we needed—” 

“ _No,_ Padmé.” 

“Okay,” she says, and with that she lifts her tablet again, sets her chin and stares directly at it. 

And Anakin hates this. 

“What do you want to name her?” 

She shakes her head. Pretending to read. 

Anakin gets on the floor, down on his knees, and gently as he can sets his hands on her middle. Padmé bites her lip. Her hands are shaking on the tablet until Anakin reaches up and takes one in his. 

Then, she looks at him. Wide-open eyes. He smiles at her and sets his ear to the place in her body where their child is. 

He listens so, so close. 

“Leia,” he says. “She’ll be born to a world at peace.” 


End file.
